First day

Today I got up at around ten o’clock. I had been going to get up for some time, but I kept drifting in and out of sleep. When I eventually got downstairs our Sunday paper, ‘The Times,’ had already been delivered. Outside it was fairly sunny, with lots of scattered cloud about, and Dad was messing around in the garden, so I read a good article in the Colour Magazine about a recent major archaeological expedition to carefully investigate the tomb of Rameses XI in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings. Mum was ironing and I felt particularly argumentative and good-natured so we soon started discussing various things that were in the paper. One thing led to another and soon Dad was involved.

We talked about lots of things – the starving millions in the Horn of Africa; South Africa; and black people in Britain. Dad was, as usual, pretty heated about some things, such as West Indian “yobbos” in the Eastgate Centre in Easterby, and, again as usual, came out with some pretty
fasciststupid comments like: “If I was in power I’d deny social security payments to anybody who had stolen a car or burgalled a house”; thereby casting them into poverty. We also talked a bit about S. Africa, and Dad said that by blowing up government facilities, Black nationalist organisations were doing themselves no good, especially since the apartheid system was “gradually” being altered. Surely such a blatantly racialist system should be changed quickly, not gradually. I quite enjoy these discussions we often have, although eventually Dad takes them too much to heart and starts becoming red in the face and vicious.

Nanna P. came down about twelve, and we had roast beef,
chips and fish fingers for dinner. Over dinner, Nanna P. started talking about Ken & Shirley (famous comedy duo). She told us how the latter, my step-aunt, was withholding details about Tracy’s (my cousin) birthplace, (Tracy and her younger sister Lisa are Shirley’s children by a Scottish bloke who disappeared – Shirley then marrying Uncle Kenneth after my real Aunt, Aunty Dorothy, had divorced him - ). I can’t stand Shirley, she is so false. She assumes these pseudo-upper class accents and is always barging in on other peoples lives. She also dies her hair blonde and brushes it so that she looks like some middle-aged punk.

After Dad went to work at two o’clock, I went upstairs and had my hair washed. I then went into my bedroom and read through parts of “Alive” and “Survive,” the two books on the 1972 aircrash in the Andes, until it dried. Those books made a deep impression on me when I read them.

Anyway, I revised a bit for tomorrow’s Physics 16+ Paper 1 exam. It’s my fourth exam, I’ve already had French CSE, Biology and History Paper 2. Funnily enough, I’m not really worried about my ‘O’ levels, even though I’ve done bugger all revision. I’ll muddle through – I usually do.

I did about an hours revision and then played records all afternoon; Stan’ Clarke; Al DiMeola; Mike Oldfield and Jimi Hendrix. I also played Todd Rundgren’s “A Wizard/A True Star,” the first side of which is ace. I felt really good laying on my bed in the sun listening to such ace music, all exam troubles seemed so distant. It reminded me of Andrew and about a year ago when we used to sit in my (then his) bedroom and play such ace pieces as Santana’s “Moonflower” and “Caravanserai,” while the sun set.

During the evenings, the sun shines continuously through my bedroom window and it gets really warm and still.

And that’s how I spent most of my evening, playing darts, and listening to some fine music. I went down at about eight and got embroiled in a “Likely Lads” TV film, which was really good. Dad came home at ten and took Nanna P. home immediately. I made some tea and then, after having beans on toast for supper and watching Jim Watt successfully defend his World Lightweight title for the third time, I went to have a bath and then to bed.

I’m writing this in bed and it is a quarter to one tomorrow morning and I have a Physics exam in eight and a quarter hours.

Today was the first day of the rest of my life, and this diary is going to be a record, for me when I’m old, of my thoughts and actions every day. It may be boring for an outside reader, but then it’s not intended to be read by anyone else but me. It will be really fascinating if only I can keep it up.